Fear of the Dark
by Eris Perap
Summary: "Darkness is nothing but lack of light", his mother always used to tell him. "All the monsters you believe are there exist only in your imagination. They're not real. They can never hurt you." She was wrong.
1. Mind of Darkness

_**A/N: This is a five chapters origin story about Fumikage Tokoyami. I haven't read the latest of the manga, but I still wanted to upload this story for Halloween and best bird's birthday. Hope you enjoy it!**_

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**FEAR OF THE DARK (FUMIKAGE TOKOYAMI: ORIGIN)**

_"Darkness is nothing but lack of light", his mother always used to tell him. "All the monsters you believe are there exist only in your imagination. They're not real. They can never hurt you."_

_She was wrong._

**Mind of Darkness**

The swings eerily squeaked in the autumn wind at the deserted playground. An enormous cloud was covering the whole sky as far as the eye could see. It made the brightly colors of the playground tools look dim and gloomy. From the nearby forest the cawing of a raven was heard. A bunch of rustling red maple leaves blew in with the wind towards the center of the playground where they swirled around on the ground in a circle like tiny dancing devils.

"Mom? Dad?" the little three-year-old boy with a jetblack bird head shouted anxious and looked around. For a playground he couldn't help but to find the place a bit creepy for the moment. Also, he was pretty sure he wasn't allowed to be there all alone for his parents. However… for some reason he had the feeling that he wasn't really alone…

The black feathers on the back of his head rose as he suddenly in the corner of his eye noticed something rapidly swish by near the red dome-shaped play cave. He turned his head towards the cave, which had holes in it like a Swiss cheese, but couldn't see anything unusual over there. Before he even got a chance to wonder if he'd just imagined it all, the same thing suddenly happened again, but this time by the slide at the other side of the playground, a shadow quickly passing by, only to disappear again as fast as it came.

"W-Who's there?" he stuttered worried and felt a lump starting to form in his chest.

Suddenly, a faint whisper was heard. He couldn't locate from where it came from, nor could he make out any words, only incoherent gibberish. The lump in the chest grew bigger as the whispers, which reminded of a snake's hissing, got louder and louder. He still couldn't understand a word.

He jolted and let out a 'huh' when he once again saw the shadow whizz by the cave. His skin became cold and his body started shaking when he just shortly thereafter saw it pass by the bushes behind him. He saw it by the seesaw. Then by a tree. Over a boulder. At the cave again. Over a park bench. The slide…

The time intervals became shorter and shorter and he could no longer keep track of where it was or where it had just been. The whispers got stronger and stronger and more intense. His heart was pounding so hard that it felt like a hammer and his eyes got watery. That's when he finally managed to make out one word from the whispers:

"_Fu…mi…ka…ge…_"

All of a sudden, all the half-dozen dark shadows slithered like gray-black snakes across the ground from the various objects in the area toward the center of the unevenly distributed circle of maple leaves. They merged and formed something that looked like a pitch-black hole in the asphalt. To his horror, he watched a night-black creature, consisting of neither gas, liquid nor solid form, rise up from the hole. It had the ghastly appearance of a mix between a raptor, a dragon and a snake. Its flaming yellow eyes pierced through his soul like two burning spears and he didn't even notice that the whispers had ceased.

Terrified, he immediately ran out of the park. The gravel crunched against his shoes as he ran along the path that led away from there, faster than he'd ever ran before. He threw an eye over his shoulder and watched to his horror the black monster grow bigger and bigger and wildly stretch out its elongated body after him with its razor sharp beak wide open and the two clawed hands desperately trying to grab him. The gruesome beast was now so large that it blocked out part of the sky and it seemed to suck up all the light in the area like a black hole. Its yellow eyes turned into a more fiery red color the larger and stronger it got.

Without really have been aware of it, he suddenly realised that he had run into the forest. A murder of loudly flapping crows high-tailed into the grey sky, cawing terrified. The naked tree branches vaulted over him like dark spider web as he desperate kept running. The vegetation got denser and denser and blocked out more and more of the small among of light that remained. He felt a low growing twig whip his cheek and almost hooked off some of his feathers. Behind him, he heard the violent sound of branches breaking as the beast continued to follow him.

In the end, he had to stop. The only thing he could see in front of him was a pitch-black void of nothingness. He couldn't even see where he put his feet anymore. It didn't help that the trees looked like tall monsters with long skeleton fingers. His heart was beating so fast that it felt like it was about to break and he was breathing heavily. As he turned his head around, he looked into the enormous beast's wide-open jaws, which inside was somehow even darker than anything else. The red peril eyes burned two blinding marks on his retinas and was the last thing he saw before the beast devoured him.

"_AAAAHHHHH…!_"

Frightened panting he sat up in his bed. With his heart beating fast, he frantically stretched for the lamp on the bedside table. He accidentally knocked over the alarm clock, which hit the floor with an awfully loud bump. He finally found the switch and the sudden bright light blinded his eyes. It did however immediately make him feel more at ease. Still heavily breathing, he leaned his back against the pillow. He was still shaking and his pyjamas felt sticky against his cold sweaty skin. He took his favourite action figure, which was right next to the pillow, and hugged it, scared. Then he got out of bed and walked over to his parent's room. He immediately turned on the ceiling lights by the threshold.

"Mommy! Daddy! A monster tried to eat me!" he cried.

"Sweetie, you just had another bad dream", his mother mumbled tired under the cover without turning around towards him.

"But it was really scary!" he persisted on the verge of tears.

His mother sighed.

"Fine, come here", she said and patted her hand at the space in the middle of the bed.

He climbed in between his parents without turning the lights off and made himself comfortable. He felt immediately safer there.

"Fumikage, sweetie", his mother said and comforting stroke his shoulder, "that monster was only in your a dream. You remember what we said about dreams, right?"

"They aren't real", Fumikage, who with closed eyes already was about to fall back to sleep, answered.

"Exactly, and things that aren't real can never hurt you. Remember?"

"I remember", he said before falling into slumber.


	2. Skuggorna kommer

**Skuggorna kommer (Shadows Rising)**

Contently, he dangled his feet so the swing he was sitting on wiggled slightly. He was now finally tall enough that he could just about reach down to the sand with the tip of his toes, at least if he stretched himself. Happy, he kicked up some sand from the top of one of the small piles and saw the grains forming a sand cloud in the air before they fell back down. He let go of one of the swing's metallic chains to use his hand to scratch his itchy spiky jaw. (The spikes were new feathers that were still growing.) He peeled off the waxy tubular sheath (which enclosed the feather) with his nails to free the vane (the soft part of the feather) above the area where the veins still hadn't receded down the shaft yet, careful so it wouldn't hurt and start bleeding. It was a bad habit that drove his parents crazy.

A bit further away at the kindergarten playground, he heard some of the other children loudly playing tag.

"Hey! Using your quirk is cheating!" one of them cried.

Himself, he sometimes preferred to be alone instead of running around and play with the other children. It wasn't that he disliked hanging with them, it was just nice to sometimes get away from all the loud noises and hullabaloo. On such occasions, he would either go and climb up the trees or go to the swings and play. He liked the swings. He liked feeling the wind toward his feathered face. It made him feel like he was flying. He hoped he'd get a quirk that would make him able to do that one day. Since he indeed did have a bird mutation the chance for that was pretty big.

"Hey! Birdie!"

Over the playground, three boys came towards him. One of them had a red ball in his hands.

He hated that nickname. Why couldn't his parents have given him a name that was a little easier for people to pronounce?

"Why are you sitting here all by yourself like a weirdo?" one of them asked.

Why did people always have to question that?

"Because I feel like it", he mumbled a bit annoyed.

"You're weird."

"Do you wanna play ball with us?" asked the guy with the ball, which he tossed a little with in his hands.

"No thanks", he said without sounding too rude.

"Ah, stop being such a bore, Birdie. Come and play with us", the first one said.

"Yeah, we need one more to play."

He thought it through for a moment.

"Hm… Fine. Okay", he finally said a bit reluctantly and hopped down from the swing, he wasn't boring. The three boys in front of him were all at least one head taller.

They had decided to use bats so they went over to the steel locker next to the playing field where all the sports equipment were being kept.

"I can't reach", one of the boys said and gave up trying to stretch for the bats leaning against one of the corners inside. "Birdie, you have to go in and get them."

"Why do _I_ have to do it?" he asked annoyed.

"Because you're the smallest and the only one who fits", one of them pointed out.

He hesitantly looked into the narrow dark space where tennis balls, rackets and floor-ball sticks half-chaotically were scattered around. He got a lump his throat.

"I don't want to", he mumbled.

"Haha! What? Are you afraid or something?" one of teased and they all laughed.

"No, I'm not!" he said, so ruffled that the feathers by his upper beak-root fluffed up. "Fine, I'll go in and get them if you think it's so hard!"

Agitated, he climbed into the locker, which was set up on four short legs. The roof was too low so he had to crawl on his knees to get to the bats. Right when his fingertips was about to reach one of them, he heard the two locker doors suddenly close behind him and it got pitch black.

"Hey!"

"AHAHAHAHA…!"

Outside he heard the guys laughing hysterically. He turned around and managed to locate the narrow, close to non-existing, stream of light between the doors.

"Open the doors!" he shouted and banged his fist against one of the doors so the whole locker shook loudly. He heard some of the stuff behind him fall over. The darkness made the roar sound more intensive and extra horrifying and it made his heart jump. He felt a chill running up his spine and his whole body started shaking as he involuntarily imagined dozens of bony hands reaching out, trying to grab him.

"Guys, it's not funny, let me out!" he told. His words came out more tearful than he had intended. The stream of light got blurry through his watery eyes as he desperately continued knocking. The boys just kept laughing, a horrible laughter.

His heart started racing and he began to breathe heavily as a tsunami of panic washed him over. What if they never let him out? What if no one ever found him? What if he would be stuck in this horrible locker forever, staring into nothing but eternal darkness that he wouldn't even notice his flame of life going out…?

_Darkness is nothing but lack of light._

Suddenly, he started to feel a strange pressure over his back, shoulders and head. It felt like a gigantic hand tried to press him down. The pressure got harder and harder and more and more painful. It spread down his shoulder and around his chest and he got trouble to breathe. As he tried to shake it off, he noticed, to his surprise, that he couldn't feel that there was anything there. There was no matter. It was like it was in the air itself, a ghost that was trying to squeeze him. What was this really?!

_All the monsters you believe are there exist only in your imagination._

"O-OUCH!"

He screamed in pain when his ribs was squeezed and he felt as if his skull was getting crushed.

"LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT!" he cried terrified and desperately kept banging on the door.

He started feeling dizzy due to the pain to the point that he couldn't sit upright on his knees anymore. Weakened, he fell over and hit the shoulder in the wall behind. He heard more things fall over around him and landing on him. He felt something whiz by right in front of his face and when he looked towards the light stream, he saw how it partially got blocked occasional by dark streaks that dashed back and forth in front of it, making it sound like thunder against the metallic walls. As he struggling tried to get back up to the door, he suddenly noticed a small glowing dot flying around like a will-o-wisp, so quick that it left a yellow comet tail behind it. It grew bigger and bigger and he noticed that it wasn't just one, but two of them, flying side by side. They suddenly steered straight towards him while continuing growing.

_They're not real._

His whole body froze that he for a moment didn't even feel the pain anymore as he suddenly realized what they were the closer they got and the more they opened up.

"No…"

It can't be… This must be a nightmare! You're not real! YOU'RE NOT REAL!

Those were the words that went through his mind as he stared into the most evil red-flaming eyes he had ever seen.

"NO!"

The beast opened its jaws and he felt its icy odorless breath as it threw itself over and straight through him. The pain increase to at least three time worse and it got harder and harder to breathe.

"Let go of me! Leave me alone…!" he desperately tried to scream as tears was running, but the words just came out as a weak whimper. He coughed. His head felt like it was about to explode. He tried to call 'help', but couldn't get a word out anymore.

_They can never hurt you._

His muscles got weaker and weaker and he didn't even notice that the laughter outside had stopped. Powerless, he slid down to the floor. He started seeing stars flashing on the retinas like rhinestones. They had a kind of horrible beauty over them. Eventually, the stars faded away…

A big boom echoed over the playground. The loud sound woke him up combined with the sudden bright sunlight. The excruciating tensions started to let go. He felt the floor fall freely a few centimeters and hit the ground as the cabinet legs collapsed. Through his blurry vision he saw a strange black powdery cloud-mass wiggle around him. A bloodcurdling, high-pitched screech, sounding like it came from a bird of prey in deep pain, pierced through his ears. For just a second he got a glimpse of the silhouette of the screaming beast's dragonlike head, formed by the strange substance, before it withdrew and disappeared together with the dark mist.

As he apathetically remained lying on the steel floor underneath a blanket of steel pieces and broken bandy sticks, he watched the tennis balls roll out over the ground. Under what previously had been one of the locker doors, he saw the three guys groaning get up. One of them had a cut under the eye and another had blood running from the forehead and down the cheek. Their faces went pale as they shaking looked at him in terror. Weeping, they ran away.

He heard the sound of fast-pacing steps coming towards him and saw the low-heeled shoed feet, belonging to one of the kindergarten teacher, enter his vision.

"Oh my! What happened here?"

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**_A/N: _****_A little trivia, all the chapter names are song titles from an old 80s Swedish gothic rock band named Cortex._**


	3. Warrior Night

**Warrior Night**

"Your son's quirk seems to be one of those classified as living shadow quirks", the doctor told after finally have finished the analyzes.

Fumikage was still in such a state of shock that he barely remembered much of when he had been examined or even how he got to the hospital. He hadn't either been much bothered by the sting from the needle when they had taken blood sample. He had heard something about that he had gotten fractures in several bones so he got to make a visit to the kind lady Recovery Girl, who'd patched him up quickly.

"It's a rather unusual and very powerful quirk", the doctor continued. "Say, do you have any more in the family with something similar?"

He didn't really listen much to the conversation his parents was having with the doctor. Instead he was just leaning against his mother, who was sitting right next to him with her arm around him, comfortingly stroking his upper arm. He was still seeing those horrible eyes before him, and the image of when the beast had thrown itself at him played over and over again in his mind like a video stuck on repeat. Its painful scream was still ringing in his ears.

"Is his quirk going to be like this all the time?" his father asked concerned.

"Well, from what I can tell, its power seems to be connected to the lack of light", the doctor said. "I would guess that this incident was just an unfortunate extreme case. I recommend that until your son has learned to control his quirk he should avoid dark places and sleep with a night light."

"Yeah, that sounds wise", his mother said.

"And, um", the doctor continued, suddenly a bit cautiously, "considering the circumstances, I'd also recommend that your son gets to see a quirk therapist. I can help you book one in the upcoming days."

He didn't know what a quirk therapist was, but he noticed that his parents got silent for a moment and that his mother's caresses got slightly harder and stiffer, more protective. His parents looked a bit considering at each other and at their son before they both turned back to the doctor.

"Yes, that would probably be good. We'll take that", his mother finally said reasonably.

That he should stay away from dark places was nothing anyone needed to tell him. It was enough for him to just look down a dark corridor and his heart would start racing. He was never outdoors after sunset and he always made sure to bring a flashlight with him wherever he went. Before entering a dark room, he always stayed at the threshold and anxiously fumbled for the switch on the wall. He utterly hated the rooms where he had to go in a bit to turn the light on or off. Even in the light of the flashlight he could still feel his neck skin crawl and while quickening up his pace forward he always fixed his eyes at an illuminated point.

At least no one at kindergarten made fun of him anymore. Instead many kids suddenly wanted to be his friend and thought he was cool. Or, rather, that his _quirk_ was cool. Even the teachers were impressed. Whatever's so cool about a quirk that could uncontrollably harm people, he did not understand. Some kids seemed rather afraid of him and pointed out that he would make a scary villain, which he did not like at all. Honestly, he found all the sudden attention quite bothersome and annoying. Especially since all everyone seemed to want to talk to him about was his quirk or the fact that he had the head of a bird (like he wasn't already aware of that).

He had been urged by the doctor to regularly work on his quirk in daylight under safe conditions to get used to it.

"Look, it's like always having a friend with you everywhere", his mother said encouragingly, as he ordered the shadow to pick up an apple from the basket on the dining table.

"Or an extra arm", his dad said.

"_Here you go!_" the yellow-eyed shadow creature, whose black exterior looked rather purple when the light shone through it, lilted cheerful with its demonic hollow voice and held out the red apple towards him. A little reluctantly he took it.

The shadow may not be as scary and ferocious in daylight and its strength could at its lowest point be equaled to the power of a cockroach. He could definitely see the advantages of it. Unfortunately, he could not appreciate them. All he saw was the same beast with the same awful eyes as the one who had chased him through the woods in his dream, almost crushed him in the locker and who had hurt three of his playmates. He hated it.

"_Can't we just get along?_" it sometimes asked him pitifully.

"No", he said sulky.

The time for the meeting with the quirk therapist arrived eventually. He still didn't really know what he was supposed to do there, but at least he didn't had to go to kindergarten that day. Since the meeting was quite early in the morning, he was still a bit tired. Half asleep, he waited with his parents in the waiting room with his favorite action figure, which he had been allowed to bring along, in his arms. Finally, a young lady, about 20-30ish, with long golden-blond hair and glasses came out to them.

"Alright, next up is Tokoyami", she said.

"That's us", his mother said and they all got up from the sofa and went over to her.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Dr. Sora Sunayama", she kindly presented herself and shook hands with both parents before turning to the little boy. "And you must be Fumikage, I presume."

Shyly he hid behind his mother's legs.

"Uh, he's not very talkative", his mom told a bit excusing.

"Oh, that's okay", Dr. Sunayama said understanding. "You can all come with me this way."

They entered a rather small room where there were some toys and drawing blocks and crayons that he was allowed to play with while his parents talked to the doctor. However, for the moment, he preferred to play with his action figure.

"He hasn't wanted to talk about the incident really", his mom told after they'd all taken seats in the sofa across the doctor.

"I can understand why. It must have been a really awful experience", Sunayama said and looked sympathetic at the little boy. "However, we don't have to get in on that particular part just yet. During this first meeting my plan was mainly to get to know each other first."

She seemed to talk more to him rather than to his parents, he noted a bit surprized. He was mostly used to that doctors only talked _about_ him, not _to_ him.

"If it's okay, I would like to talk to Fumikage alone for a moment", the doctor said after a while.

"How does that sound, sweetie?" his mom asked him. "Mommy and daddy will be right outside."

He thought for a short while. Then he nodded his head and the parents left the room.

"Say, Fumikage, I heard you just turned four years old the other day", she said informed. "The day before Halloween. Did you have a nice birthday?"

He didn't answer.

"By the way, is that an All Might action figure you've got there?" she asked and pointed at the toy in his hands.

The mentioning of the number one hero made him lift his head a bit in interest.

"Yes…", he said quietly and smiled a little.

"Do you like All Might?"

"Yes, he is the best and coolest hero there is!" he said and eagerly hopped a little in his seat. Suddenly all the shyness was vanished.

They sat for a while and talked about All Might and his deeds. Sunayama was apparently just as well-informed as he was.

"Would _you_ like to be a hero, Fumikage?" she suddenly asked after a while. "Just like All Might?"

The happy smile dropped and he started hanging with his head.

"I've always wanted to, but… I can't", he mumbled low. "Not with my quirk."

"What makes you think that?" Sunayama asked and tilted her head curious.

"Because… my quirk… it hurts people", he finally said.

"But many heroes have quirks that can be harmful", she pointed out calmly. "Like All Might's and Endeavor's quirks."

"But that's different!" he said, almost upset. "Their quirks don't hurt people when they don't want them to!"

He got teary eyes as the bad memories reawoke.

"I don't want it to do that", he mumbled sad.

"Are you worried that your quirk might harm you again?" she asked.

"Yeah, but… I'm more worried that it might harm others", he mumbled and sniffled a little. "I don't want mommy or daddy or anybody else to get hurt."

Sunayama looked empathetically at him

"Fumikage, you are a very kind and good-hearted person", she said. "That's a great quality. And _very_ good for a hero to have. Some people would even say it's the most important thing in a hero."

He came to think about all the people who had said that he would fit to be a villain. It was nice to hear for once that someone thought he had more in common with the heroes.

"Do you think your quirk is scary?" she asked.

He got silent again. Sunayama just looked at him calmly and patiently. He thought it through carefully. After a while, he decided to let the shadow out and let it hover over the seat next to him, just to look at it, look into those eyes that he hated so much.

"Not in daylight really", he finally said. "I can control it then. But… when it gets dark…" The awful images once again rolled through his mind and the screams echoed in his head. "…it gets stronger… and evil."

Sunayama looked thoughtful.

"Fumikage, may I ask? Are you perhaps afraid of the dark?"

He was thrown back to that time at the kindergarten playground and he could hear the guys teasingly laugh in his head.

"_Haha! What? Are you afraid or something?_"

Sunayama's tone had however neither been mean or teasing, rather serious and curious.

Embarrassed, he guiltily started to fumble with the action figure in his hands.

"Maybe… Just a little…", he mumbled in a slightly more high-pitched voice and shamefully looked at his feet, which just almost reached over the edge of the seat.

"There is nothing wrong with being afraid", she said. "Do you want to know a secret?" She bent a little closer towards him. "Most heroes are afraid of something."

"How can they be that?" he asked confounded. "They're all so brave."

"Bravery has nothing to do with not being afraid. Bravery is about doing what's right and not let your fear stop you. Sometimes the bravest people are also the ones who are most afraid, because they have to fight their fear as well as they fight problems. To most people the biggest enemy is not a villain, but one's own fear."

He thought about what she'd just said. Pondering, he looked at the shadow, who docilely still was hovering in the same spot. Cheerfully, it waved at him.

"Do you want to know what I think?" she asked. "I believe, if you manage to work on your fear of the dark and learn how to use your quirk, you would be an AMAZING hero."

She smiled sure at him.

"_I LOVE the sound of that!_" the shadow said exited.

Thoughtful, he looked out the window over the city. Even though the night was over, the moon was still up, in the phase of waning gibbous. Its grey-white motley color almost melted into the light blue sky between the skyscrapers.

When they left the room afterwards, the first thing he did was to, determined and resolute, say to his parents:

"Mommy, daddy, I'm gonna be a hero."


	4. Morning Moon

**Morning Moon**

During the upcoming meetings with Sunayama, he got to undergo cognitive treatment, which meant that he would learn to get used to be in the dark. This by staying in a room where the brightness gradually got reduced.

"Do you want mommy and daddy to join you in there?" his mother asked.

Fumikage shook his head.

"No. I don't want you to get hurt."

"That's very thoughtful and brave of you", Sunayama said. "We will be able to see and hear everything that happens in there here on the monitor, and you will be able to hear us through these."

She put a pair of headphones on him and helped adjust them. Then he walked into a white room where there was only a couch, a round table and a camera in one of the upper corners.

"_I lower the brightness now just a little bit_", he heard Sunayama say in the headphones.

He noticed that the white walls became slightly greyer. The brightness continued to gradually decrease more and more. So far, he was still calm.

When it got so dark that he hardly could discern the contours of the furniture and his heart started racing, he reminded himself of the tips the doctor had told him:

"If you ever feel that you're about to panic, get too upset or angry you can calm yourself down by focusing on your breathing. Start by taking a deep breath through your nose… er, beak-drills in your case, and count to five. Then you breathe out slowly while counting to five twice. Repeat the same thing over and over until you feel completely calm", she had told and showed how he could count on his fingers. (He was still in the development stage where he could just about count that far.)

As he stood there in the dark, he followed her advice while holding out each finger one by one. One, two, three, four, five…

"Whenever you get scared, you automatically start thinking about the worst possible thing that could happen, right? That your quirk is going to cause harm? You can counter this by instead trying to think what the _best_ possible thing would be that could happen", she had also tipped.

Hm, the best possible thing that could happen…

He racked his brain.

Hm… let's see, I… get better night vision. That could be good to fight villains. I see them, but they can't see me! Okay, what more is there? Hm… The shadow gets stronger in the dark and can therefore beat the bad guys better. Unless it hurts someone else instead… No! No! Go back! Go back! Uh… uh… I… I could finally test and see how my luminous toys work. Oh, I should have asked if I could have brought them with me! I have to remember that for next time.

In the headphones, his parents and Sunayama talked calming to him. He only stayed in the dark for a few minutes the first time, but it felt much longer. Afterwards, he got an apple as a reward. (Apples were his favorite snacks.)

During the upcoming visits, the time period in the room extended more and more. For the longer stays, to make him feel more at ease and not get bored, he got to play with toys, paint with luminescent paint, listen to music or watch TV. The visitations got easier and easier and he even felt confident enough to let other people stay with him in the room as well. The anxiety before the stays subdued more and more and he eventually found the courage to practice by himself at home. He did still however sleep with the light on during nights just in case.

The next step was to start practicing his quirk in different lighting conditions. He could really feel the strength of the beast, which he'd decided to name Dark Shadow, increase and how it became more wild, like an excited horse on pasture, as the light intensity got lowered. Though, as long as he just kept his cool, he was able to control it. It was actually pretty cool, he had to admit, to feel such power.

To get ideas on how he could use his quirk, he got to know about other people, both real and fictional, who had similar abilities like him or were using the darkness to their advantage. He got to hear stories about classic heroes from very old comic books and TV-shows. Heroes like Raven, Batman, Daredevil and Darkwing Duck. They all inspired him a lot in so many ways. Raven taught him to stay calm in difficult situations and control his emotions, Batman inspired him to be brave and have the courage to face his fears, Daredevil gave him tips on how to navigate in the dark and taught him to stay focused, and Darkwing Duck helped him to become more confident and realizing that having a bird head can be pretty cool.

But the probably most important insight he got was that creatures of the dark not necessarily had to be evil. When all came about, they were just like everyone else, just different.

He came to think of his peers in kindergarten, how everyone there thought he was weird just because he didn't always like the same things as they did, or found him scary. When he thought about it, he realized that maybe he wasn't so different from the creatures of the dark. In fact, they may actually have a lot in common…

He had decided. Instead of fearing the creatures of the dark, he was going to get to know them better and maybe even befriend them. Then, as a hero, he would be able show the world that there's nothing wrong about being different.

In the end, every time he looked down a dark hallway, it wasn't because of fear that his heart started racing, but excitement. The darkness troubled him so little now that he unawarely even started to forget to bring his flashlight along more and more often. The meetings with Dr. Sunayama also didn't feel like doctor's visits at all, but more like a fun and educational sport activity. It was a little with sadness that he got to know that he wouldn't have to go there anymore.

"By the way, Doctor, what's your quirk?" he asked curious as he realized he'd forgotten to ask that.

"I'm an empath. That means I can sense what people around me feel, like if they're happy or sad", she explained before he even got time to ask what an empath was.

He thought a little and could suddenly put two and two together.

"Oh. Okay", he said short, pleased with that answer.

As he was lying in his bed for the night, he looked at the lit bedside lamp next to him. The strong light from the light bulb left dark purple spots on his retinas that lit up in a green-yellow shine every time he closed his eyes. He considered for a long time. Then he turned the lamp off and went to sleep.


	5. Black Paradise

**Black Paradise**

He was back in the woods again, at the same spot where he had stopped previously. It wasn't as dark this time, he noted, since he still could discern the notches in the gray bark of the trees several meters away. Or… at least he didn't _experience_ it as dark.

Behind him, he heard through the roar of the wind the beast violently elbowing itself forwards between the trees, making leaves rustle and twigs break. He turned around and watched the jet-black creature half-floated half-crawled towards him like a hungry instinct-driven zombie. Dozens of terrified cawing corvids were seen flying in the cloudy sky between the tree branches. Their flapping made it look like static in the sky. The beast struggled to get through the vegetation and dragged its claws through the leaf-covered ground like two enormous rakes. Was it just him, or did its movements seem a bit strained? And hadn't it been much larger last time?

Thoughtfully, he observed it, looked into its flaming eyes, at its beak-like snout, at the pointy spikes on the back of its head that kind of resembled the way his own feathers were pointed…

That's when he suddenly realized it.

"I know who you are now", he said. "You're me, aren't you?"

It all made sense. The reason why Dark Shadow had grown so large at the playground was because he got scared, and when it grew, he got even more scared, which led it to becoming even larger. It all turned into a vicious circle. However, when it came down to the centre, it had all just been him the whole time.

Calmly, yet determined, he took one step towards it.

"I'm not going to be afraid of you", he said. "Instead, you are going to help me."

Bravely, he continued walking towards the gigantic creature, which was about half the height of the trees. The wind caused the leaves on the ground to swirl. His heart jumped a little when the beast violently broke off a thick branch from one of the trees, but before he even got time to get scared, he reminded himself to stay calm. After all, there was no point in getting wound up. It would only make him lose focus.

"You're going to help me become a hero!" he shouted loud and firmly.

Just a few meters from it, it opened its big jaws and let out an imitating roar at him. He didn't even flinch. Neither did he when the gigantic beast suddenly threw itself and closed its jaws around him.

No collision happened, all he felt was a light breeze where he stood, still upright, in the midst of a swirling darkness. He felt no pain from the violent whips that surrounded him. Instead, he felt this enormous power bow to his wishes and filling him with an amazing strength. He lifted his hands up towards the sky in triumph and proudly let out a victory cry.

* * *

_To most people the biggest enemy is not a villain, but one's own fear. Fumikage Tokoyami did not only defeat his biggest enemy, he conquered it. It was no longer the demon who was in control of him, instead HE controlled the demon. __This was his first greatest victory on his journey to become the incredible hero that people would come to know of as Jet-Black Hero: Tsukuyomi._

**THE END**


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